Eeoc Withdraws Harassment Guidelines, Sparking Jewish Calls for Another Try

A decision by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to withdraw workplace harassment guidelines widely viewed as flawed is drawing mixed reactions from Jewish groups.

The EEOC voted last week to withdraw comprehensive racial, gender and religious harassment guidelines from consideration in response to protests across the political and religious spectrum.

Orthodox Jewish groups active in the debate expressed “profound disappointment” over the decision, citing the immediate need for such guidelines. At the same time, the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League declared the EEOC decision the best resolution possible.

Most Jewish organizations agreed, however, that new guidelines should be drafted, something that EEOC officials said is not in the wings.

EEOC last year drafted comprehensive work-place harassment guidelines, in which it sought to define unlawful religious harassment as any conduct — verbal or physical — that “denigrates or shows hostility or aversion toward an individual because of his/her religion.”

Evangelical Christians and many members of Congress fought the guidelines, fearing employers would ban all religious expression in the work-place in order to avoid harassment claims.

In June, the Senate voted unanimously to urge the EEOC to withdraw religion altogether from the guidelines.

Though also concerned about the guidelines as they were written, Jewish groups across the spectrum, in conjunction with a broad coalition of other religious organizations and the American Civil Liberties Union, disagreed that the guidelines would force employers to ban all forms of religious expression. So this coalition lobbied to include religion in the guidelines.

LETTER-WRITERS QUESTIONED THE GUIDELINES

Like all federal agencies, when the EEOC wants to propose rules or guidelines, they are published in the Federal Register and are subject to a comment period by all interested parties.

The EEOC received over 100,000 letters commenting on the harassment guidelines, according to an EEOC official. The letters mostly concerned the guidelines pertaining to religious harassment, with some letter-writers questioning the specifics of the guidelines and others wondering whether religious harassment warranted the same protection as other forms of harassment, according to the official.

By withdrawing all the guidelines — rather than just the controversial religious guidelines–the EEOC avoided singling out religious harassment, a move some have argued would have given the impression that religious harassment is less important than other forms of harassment.

Still, Orthodox groups are concerned that the lack of religious harassment guidelines could pose problems for Orthodox Jews, according to Abba Cohen, Washington director of Agudath Israel.

Cohen said he was “profoundly disappointed” by the EEOC’s decision. “Unfortunately we in the Orthodox Jewish community are all too often the victims of religious harassment,” he said.

Cohen acknowledged that there were problems with the proposed guidelines, but “the answer was not to scrap them, but to fix them.”

Cohen called upon the EEOC to write new, “very clear and very strong guidelines.”

In contrast, AJCommittee’s legislative director and counsel, Richard Foltin, called the withdrawal “the best resolution of the situation given where we are today,” but agreed with Cohen, along with representatives of ADL and AJCongress, that new harassment guidelines are needed.

ADL’s Washington representative, Jess Hordes, said that EEOC’s decision not to single out religious harassment bolsters the Jewish organizational view that such guidelines need to be included in overall guidelines on harassment.

Mark Pelavin, AJCongress’ Washington representative, agreed.

“Religious harassment guidelines are important and should be treated in broader harassment guidelines,” he said.